March 2006

March 29, 2006

The gauntlet has been thrown down, a new standard has been set for needful advertising, Ladies and Gentlemen, a new standard has been set for meaningless drivel. The ad in question was immediately placed in the “Needful Hall Of Fame” for the phrase “for all your landscape and compost needs.” Compost needs joins, “flagpole,” “STP®,” and “ARMOR ALL®” as the most unlikely “need” the average American consumer might have.

Less than five seconds later I was informed that the advertiser is the place to go for “all my landscape needs” (again). Two “needs” in one commercial – amazing. But not as amazing as the other two “landscaping needs” that followed in the next thirty seconds!

In a one minute the ad writer used the word “needs” five times, putting every other copy-writer in America on notice. With the use of four “landscape needs” in one commercial.

Just when you think you’ve heard everything, you’ve heard nothing. No compelling reasons to do business with the advertiser, nothing to persuade me that the advertiser is any better than any other compost and landscape supplier in town. I’m not even sure what the advertiser means by “landscape needs.” However, I am sure that if the ad writer would have given more than three minutes of thought to the ad the advertiser would be getting a better return on his investment.Stop wasting the listener’s time and your advertiser’s money.

March 24, 2006

Building a brand requires consistency across all customer touch-points. That much is obvious but what may not be obvious is what “all customer touch-points” includes.

I had the pleasure of meeting with a group of 5 insurance agencies who are have pooled marketing funds into a local co-op. They all represent the same national insurance company but they want to brand themselves as “5 Star Insurance Team.” The purchased the back cover of the phonebook – “5 Star Insurance Team” prominently displayed with a map along with address and phone numbers of the individual offices.

“How do you answer you phones?”“Thanks for calling (Brand Name) Insurance Mary Smith.”“How often do people hang up on you?”“How did you know we have people hanging up on us?”“When did you start noticing the hang ups?”“When the new phone book came out. Why?”“Because the ad on the phone says “ 5 Star Insurance Team. Your receptionist says (Brand Name) Insurance. I think I’ve dialed the wrong number. I want to talk to the “5 Star Insurance Team” not (Brand Name) Insurance – click.”“Uh oh.”“Uh oh, indeed. How about something like, ‘Thanks for calling The 5 Star Insurance Team – Mary Smith (Brand Name)?’”Hmm...

Make it easy for your customers to find you and do business with you. If you call yourself one thing on Monday and another thing on Tuesday, I’ll be too confused to call you on Wednesday.

It just amazed me with all the competition Las Vegas casinos have, the unfriendly, uninviting environment that prevailed during my last visit. Not once was I asked at the casino if I could be helped with my bags even though I was walking into the "Invited Guests" lounge to check into a suite acquired by accumulating credits for playing in the high limit gaming area. I didn't feel invited. In fact, I was sloughed off to the regular registration desk because of a letter I needed to pick up for the arranged Bon Jovi tickets. Did I get a personal escort to the desk with an introduction? No. I was misdirected to the desk outside. I waited my turn and was told I needed to go to another check-in line. I didn't feel special at all. Even after receiving my room keys, I was never offered assistance with my bags. Much to my dismay, the 'suite' promised in the mailer I received was just an ordinary room. Dare I complain and get what was mailed and promised to me? What happened to the $100 in chips they were going to give to me? Did I complain? No, I'm not a complainer. Will I go back to this casino? Never. The only thing I gambled on was the room service. Do you know how many people I've told that I was unimpressed and will never go back? Everyone.

If you don’t meet your customers’ expectations you could find yourself with undesirable “word of mouth.” Remember if people aren’t doing business with you it’s because they don’t know about you, they do know about you or think they know about you.

March 23, 2006

There’s good news tonight. I’ve been informed that the owner of the Italian restaurant mentioned in a previous post has been spearheading a movement to bar cell phones from all downtown restaurants in his community. He may be tilting at windmills, but I wish him the best and whole-heartedly recommend his establishment based on his excellent food, service and vision.

March 20, 2006

The waitress asked, “Are you enjoying everything?” My wife and I were dining at a very nice Italian restaurant in North Carolina. The service was good, the food excellent but we weren’t enjoying everything.

Brand Essence is a complex composite of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, opinion and mood - the mental image summoned by a name, even when the name is heard silently in the mind. The “Brand Essence” of your business lies in the mind of your consumer and there are often factors out of your direct control that adversely affect the way people feel about you.

Customers who arrive at your business in a bad mood and leave in a bad mood probably aren’t going to have the best mental image of your business despite your best efforts. Sometimes your best efforts could are sabotaged by your customers who can adversely effect another customer’s experience.

Now back to the Italian restaurant. In the middle of our dinner the hat wearing (don’t get me started on the rudeness of wearing hats in restaurants) “gentleman” to my right pulls out his cell phone, calls his daughter and begins berating her for not calling her mother. It was a classic “What the Hell?” moment.

Suddenly, a cell phone rings to my left. The offending party pulls out her phone and apparently shuts it off (excellent). A few seconds later it rings again, this time her companion enthusiastically tells her to answer it. If there is a Hell it will be filled with people on cell phones. (Etiquette note: If you must take a call, leave the dining room and let others eat in peace.)

What could have been an exceptional dining experience wasn’t simply because of the rudeness of other nearby diners. Perhaps I should have answered rudeness with rudeness but any rebuke from would have fallen on deaf ears. If you haven’t learned restaurant manners by the time you’re twenty, it’s probably too late.

I offer two ideas for restaurateurs. When greeting customers have your host or hostess ask: “Smoking or Non-Smoking? Cell Phone or No Cell Phone?” Set aside a special section next to the kitchen so anyone who wishes may talk to their heart’s content.

When a customer starts talking on the cell phone have your staff run to the offending table with glass partitions to form a phone booth. Have them sing a telephone song to drown out the conversation for your other customers. Upon completion of the call, everyone claps and cheers.

March 16, 2006

The Grand Jury will come to order. I place in evidence People’s Exhibit One – a sixty-second radio ad for a candidate running for Circuit Court Judge. After a mind-numbing list of her volunteer activities and being deemed “Well Qualified” or “Qualified” by seven bar associations (there are only 3 classifications to begin with) the announcer says, “Judges play an important role in the judicial system. And you play an important role because you vote for judges.” Please pass the extra strength Tylenol®. Imagine, judges are an important part of the judicial system – it just boggles the mind.

I am madder than New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, ready to seize the Sword of Justice and start swinging. I seek indictments against the radio station’s sales rep, the station’s programming and production departments as well as the candidate.

There’s a scene in “City Slickers” where Billy Crystal’s boss walks in to his office tosses a cassette into the garbage and calls “The Pizza Guys Pizza Guys” commercial, “crap.” I’m wondering why someone at the radio station this ad aired on didn’t do the same thing. Granted the only duty a radio station has is to take the candidates money and make sure the ads air. But perhaps there should be a moral obligation to advise people who don’t know better (candidates and business owners) that what they want to run is stupid.

If the salesperson didn’t have that discussion, someone responsible for the programming should have raised the subject of how dumb this ad makes the candidate sound. Maybe they had those discussions with the candidate and lost.

In that case the candidate or the person responsible for the candidate’s advertising. Give us examples of your judgment, of your judicial philosophy. Give us anything except the obvious. People who don’t know that Circuit Court Judges are elected are probably not going to go to the polls and vote in a primary election. People who don’t know that judges play an important role in the legal system are probably to stupid to vote. My prediction those who will vote won’t be voting for this candidate.

Perhaps the candidate has nothing to say, it's the primary after all. But if there's nothing to say – please say it in thirty seconds rather than a minute and spare the rest of us.

“I've read your blog for a while now and I really enjoy it. A long-term goal of mine is to open a marketing consulting firm, and I wanted to ask if you had any advice. Currently I have a bachelor's in Marketing, and three years experience in the media department of a large ad agency. Thank you for your time.”

Which got me to thinking that there are probably many people out there with a dream of starting their own business. I’m no expert on starting a business (I’m still working the “business” kinks out of this one) and I’m hesitant about offering career advice but I am inclined to quote Lewis Carroll from “Alice's Adventures In Wonderland.”

One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. “Which road do I take?” She asked, “Where do you want to go?” Was his response, “I don't know.” Alice answered. “Then, said the cat, it doesn't matter.”

1. Describe the type of clients you want to serve. What is their potential for growth, gross annual sales, their business philosophy etc?

In “Stop Selling and Start Hiring" salespeople list the characteristics of their favorite clients (the clients they gladly go above and beyond for). Once you consciously know what that client looks like it becomes much easier to find them. I prefer to work directly with small owner operated businesses with gross sales less than a million dollars per year but have the drive, desire and tools to double or triple their businesses within a few years.

2. What is your timetable for starting your own business? Your goal needs to be well defined, achievable and time bound.

3. What baby steps will you take today or this week to move closer to your goal? I could be wrong but I’m not sure that working in the media department of a large ad agency will give one the hands on experience to be a marketing consultant. That doesn’t mean “quit your job today.” It means being able to dream big and start small.

From time to time acquaintances tell me how lucky I am to be able to do something I love to do. Luck has little if anything to do with it. In November 2000 I made the decision to have my own company. I began by answering (and acting on) these questions. I invested 5 years preparing to let go of the skinny branch. On September 15, 2005 I quit my day job and haven’t regretted it for a single moment.

Are you clutching the trunk of your tree or are you out dangling from the limbs wondering what to do next? Perhaps you can start here and follow where the road leads. Let me know when you let go – we’ll celebrate.

March 12, 2006

I went out to dinner with my sister and brother-in-law in the Detroit area over the weekend at a moderately upscale restaurant she’d heard good things about.

After we were seated I opened my menu and noticed that it was stained. Not a good start to an evening where the tab would end up over $200. I had the feeling that this wasn’t going to be one of my better dining experiences. Unfortunately, this was an accurate prediction.

It took over 5 minutes for the apologetic bus boy to arrive with our water. Our waiter breezed by a few minutes later and said he’d be right with us. Five minutes later he showed up and took our drink order. Our drink order was switched. The restaurant wasn’t extremely busy. There were plenty of open tables and wait people but I had the sense our guy was just going through the motions.

When my brother-in-law ordered a Filet – medium, the waiter asked him how he’d like it cooked. When he brought our entrees (he couldn’t remember who ordered the medium steak) he said the wine was on ice and would be “right out.” We were about halfway through our dinner when the ice bucket arrived – empty. My crab raviolis had cooled by the time the wine arrived.

Sensing my growing annoyance, my dinner companions said that at least our waiter wasn’t rude. I might have been able to accept rudeness better than the service we received. The opposite of love isn’t hate – it’s indifference.

Although it was a Saturday night, I don’t believe the owners were present. If they were they weren’t spending any time on the floor. In either case unless they start being present they’ll be out of business in another year. Not because the food isn’t good – it was above average – but rather because service expectations for this type of restaurant are higher than those of a family style restaurant. The only thing exceptional about our dining experience was the chocolate tower of death dessert we shared. But by that time we were mired in mediocrity. Taken individually, my complaints are quite minor. But taken together and amplified by 2 table turns a night, you have a recipe for disaster.

Are you present in your business? Everyone on your staff has an “off day” but unless you’re on the floor interacting with customers you won’t see it and be able to correct the situation in a timely manner. Good service doesn’t generate word of mouth buzz. But all the advertising in the world won’t help you (in fact could significantly hurt you) if you aren’t at least meeting your customers’ expectations.